This transcript was auto-generate

Life can be full of hardship, the Book of Job tells us. 

“Man, who is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble”.

Job 14: 1

As a matter of fact, it is possible that sometimes the more the Lord blesses you, the more you may have troubles to contend with. Trouble often comes right along with the Lord’s blessing, however, in hard times we can take this truth as an encouragement because of course that also means that just because you’re having problems doesn’t mean that the Lord isn’t with you or is even blessing you. I don’t know how many Christians over the years have said to me they thought because they were having a hard time maybe they were doing something wrong or that the Lord had deserted them. As a matter of fact, I’d go so far as to say that sometimes you may be having problems because the Lord is blessing you. The blessing could provoke opposition and hardship. Well, how should we handle it when blessing and hardship seem to be coming upon us at the same time. There's an illustration of that in the Book of Genesis. Turn with me to Genesis Chapter 26 and let’s look at Isaac and the fact that God was abundantly blessing him, yet he ran into a huge problem. I’m going to begin reading with chapter 26, verse 12. 

“Isaac planted crops in that land and the same year reaped a hundredfold, because the Lord blessed him. The man became rich, and his wealth continued to grow until he became very wealthy. He had so many flocks and herds and servants that the Philistines envied him. So all the wells that his father’s servants had dug in the time of his father Abraham, the Philistines stopped up, filling them with earth. Then Abimelek said to Isaac, “Move away from us; you have become too powerful for us.”

(Genesis 26: 12-16)

Now I just want to pause long enough to allow us to take note of the fact that this passage is teaching that Isaac was blessed, he was abundantly blessed. Let me show you the way this is stated, otherwise it could slip past without you noticing. As a farmer he planted crops and he reaped so his crops were successful. In the same year, one year crop reaped 100-fold. I think that that’s a bumper crop, any farmer would be thrilled if he got 100 times more than he anticipated. This is attributed as a blessing of the Lord. He worked, it says he sowed, he reaped, he worked, but it was that the Lord who was blessing him.

What I’ve learned in life about going through a very difficult situation is that you have to totally depend on the Lord. Sometimes you’ve got to put forth a lot of effort. Studying the word is the planting of the seed in our own heart, and that is the work we need to put in, but practically living the spiritual life is the way we grow the garden. Isaac work showed he planted, and he reaped and at the end of that it says the Lord blessed him in this way. Look at verse 13, he was blessed and became wealthy. We haven’t seen the end of the story yet. This is just the beginning because it says he continued to prosper until he became very prosperous. If you’d like to know what that prosperity looked like in that day, look at verse 14, He had possessions of flocks and of herds and a great number of servants. In verse 12 he sewed in verse 14 it talks about his flocks and the possession of herds, and servants. By the measure of that day, Isaac was now rich, very rich. So, he is blessed of the Lord, but he also had a problem. I said in the opening that the blessing of the Lord can sometimes cause the problem. Well, here's an example. The Philistines become envious of him. So now comes the problem. He was so wealthy, that the Philistines were jealous of him. As a matter of fact, it wouldn’t be too much to say that they were intensely jealous, as this passage is about to demonstrate.  They resented him, they resented that he was getting rich, the resented the fact that although they lived in the same area, they weren’t prospering like he was.  With prosperity sometimes comes opposition. envy, jealousy. 

And that’s only the beginning, within a few verses we find that Abimelech tells him to, “get out of here”. Go. You’re becoming more powerful than we are, they say. They are becoming afraid of him. Toward the end of the passage, it says they hate him. He gets blessed of God and instead of them saying good for you, they resent him, they’re envious of him. They fear him and they hate him

The point I’ve made so far is very simple. As Isaac got blessed of God, he ran into opposition. So, how do you handle that when you get some real opposition from people? Well, this gets really interesting. We will pick it up next time.